Appendix 2S; Humble Love  ​

 

“Selflessness is humility. Humility and freedom go hand in hand. Only a humble person can be free.” Jeff Wilson

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Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000) identify three ingredients to self-determination; “competence, autonomy, and relatedness”. But secular psychologists don’t dig deep enough to uncover the root of this performance mentality. At the core of every human being is the need for love and belonging, which forms your self-worth and dignity; a feeling of being worthy of love and respect. When you are filled by God's love, you do not feel the need to to prove your competence or value to anyone. You don’t feel like you need to draw attention to yourself or be recognized for your notoriety or importance. You don’t feel the need to show yourself worthy through your accomplishments. You are no longer aiming to please everyone around you, but your focus has become crystalized and now you aim to live in harmony with God.

 

Think about it. When you feel secure by knowing you are loved by God, the motive to please Him kicks in (a heart-felt reaction to the love and gratitude of God) and this is what motivates your performance. It's not the other way around. You don't need to prove your worth to the Creator God - who is love and who created you in His image (Genesis 1:27). It's when you accept that God's unconditional love is for you too, not just everyone else, you begin to operate out of a confident self-image and this is what motivates performance (1 John 4:16). Summarizing this: because God loves you, you love him and show it by loving others. (Your love of God, a Spiritual being, is expressed by loving His physical creation.)

 

It's your acceptance and appreciation for His love (not self-love) that causes you to Love God, yourself, and your neighbor (Mark 12:30-31). You become willing to reach out and love others without regard for yourself because you are secure in God's love and provision for you. You were created by God to operate as a “social being(s) - with the need for belonging/affiliation”, not just Spiritually but physically too, so when you act consistently, you are fulfilled, you feel whole, resulting in your peace from cognitive consistency (Isaiah 27:3, Fink, (2018), Haslam, S. A., et al. (2009)). You can confidently love others because once God’s love and acceptance of you penetrates your heart, you realize a secure identity, and this is one that is sufficient in Christ instead of one that is self-reliant and conditional - based on your mood or based on the opinions of others. If you rationalize the truth, you will corrupt the definition of love (as developed from the Creator of the universe), resulting in a dysfunctional definition of love which leads to never feeling fulfilled, much like the emptiness that King Solomon felt at the end of his life (see the book of Ecclesiastes and/or revisit "Insight for Daily Living" in section 1 of this program).  ​

 

Without humility, you won’t fulfill the law of love (Galatians 5:13-14, James 2:8). It’s not until you reach the end of yourself that God’s unconditional love breaks through your defense mechanisms and you become able to live with purpose and be able to offer a self-sacrificial love to your neighbor (John 3:16, Ephesians 5:1, Warren, R., (2014)). The command to love your neighbor competes with the motive of self-interest. Human love is double-minded. If not brought under control by your willingness to listen to the promptings of Love-the Holy Spirit within you, you’ll feel anxious from Christian cognitive dissonance.

 

A Christian is aware of the command to love your neighbor, but when this command competes with the motive of self-interest, the nagging question of “what’s in it for me” enters your mind, tainting your perception of self-sacrificial love. Even when a person turns to Christ and becomes a child of God, self-interest can sneak back into the equation, grieving the Spirit and impacting your relationship with God, with others and even with yourself. Rejecting selfishness is the attitude and behavior behind Christian cognitive consistency that ushers in eternal excellence (E  ) earth.

• Revisit Appendix 2N and Appendix 2F to see the effects of impact of pride on love

 

E   happens when you allow the power of Christ to work in and through you, D(A+B)= C  . When you trust His power, it ignites your capacity to love unconditionally. It’s a DECISION to do it - to act on that knowledge, that changes your A, B, C's. Once you are empowered by the Holy Spirit, you have to make conscious decision to act. It's this Holy Love, this supernatural energy that directs your will that moves this energy into productive action that is consistent with the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:29-30, Ephesians 5:1).​

• Read more about self-sacrificing love in Appendix 2T.

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Are you still not sure if you suffer from me-centered thinking?

How apt are you to get frustrated? Did someone take your seat, spill your coffee, cut you off, or buy the last candy bar? Before you get mad, refocus your perspective, apply forgiveness and move on! ​

Reread Philippians 2:1-15.